Further Reduction in AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is reducing their number of employees by 600 and the AstraZeneca factory in Umeå will close and relocate in Södertälje.

The AstraZeneca factory in Umeå will close in either 2010 or 2011 and move to Södertälje. According to the company, this is a step forward to make the production process more efficient and to reduce the company's general costs. The company have decided to concentrate their packaging industry in Södertälje to get closer to the consuments in the Stockholm region. This measure will result in a reduction of in total 600 employees in Sweden. The affected persons have leave their job before 2010.

The Umeå factory is only one out of three that will be closed globally. The two others are the Porriño factory in Spain and the Destelbergen factory in Belgium. AstraZeneca will also invest even more in the Wuxi factory in China, to meet the growth on the Asian markets. The factory in Wuxi is focusing on substance preparing and will be AstraZeneca's main packaging unit in Asia. By this global restructuring, 1400 employees will be dismissed before 2013.

Source: Article (in Swedish), chemicalnet.se, 20.11.2008